Episode 99 – The First Wedding

Description: Get your last bit of recap GOOeyness for two weeks here on this Monday’s episode recorded moments after the airing of the 8th installment of HBO’s Game of Thrones Season 3. Joined once again by the Fury herself of WinterisComing.net, listen and learn the effects of Tyrion’s drunken decisions, and much more.

Discussion Topics
Good morning, stone
Tyrion’s drunk decisions
Small character changes
The Lannister Family Wedding
Cersei
Killing Gendry
Dany’s new friends
Stannis and Davos
Morm Tarley
In the fire
This episode was..
The Jedi
Owns of the Show
Sue likes Tumblr
Micah reads the TweetsZack’s new show

I liked the conversation regarding killing off characters in the show that are not so far in five books. I’ve thought about it before but never considered how it could become a spoiler for the books not published yet. Obviously George doesn’t necessarily have to change his character plans per the show. However, Gendry is more of a sub-main character and one that many viewers and readers suspect and/or hope has a future in the story. Killing him on the show rather than whisking him away to safety (as the Edric stand-in) would make me believe that he is pretty much done in the books.

But I get your point. Hopefully HBO have thought about that and taken the necessary steps. I’m sure they won’t want to let any other network be the first to air an episode that they themselves created. That’s why Game of Thrones is released a day late in the UK for example.

As for killing Gendry, if House Baratheon isn’t going to go the way of the Reynes, Gendry pretty much has to be legitimized at some point. Stannis probably isn’t going to father any more children leaving Gendry and Edric as the last (known) males that could continue the Baratheon name. And since show!Gendry is Edric as well, I don’t think he’s going anywhere anytime soon. But who knows, in Martin’s world, no one is safe.

Talk about owns of the show and noone mentions how he just walks into Dany’s tent saying things like:

“I once knew a whore who looked just like you and she used her tongue to lick my ass”

Or:

“Show me your cunt so I can see if it’s worth fighting for”

Mero just walked into Dany’s tent and OWNED everything. Lol, how can you guys not mention that?

Yeah he gets killed whatever… But in that tent, at that moment, he was fucking badass and owned that shit and talked down to Dany like she was some stupid whore… Totally owning her…

Love the podcast, keep up the good work but geez… Can’t believe noone noticed Mero’s owns. I’ve read all the books AND listened to the audio books. But that actor who played Mero actually had me on the edge of my seat fearing for Dany, he was imposing and owned that scene, just saying…

Nice podcast, but I find it rather surprising that you pretty much glossed over the majority of the episode – the wedding – in an episode titled “the first wedding”. :-D (no wonder the podcast was so short)

What’s next, just a one sentence about the next wedding? ;-)

You seemed to spend 2x time talking about the Gendry/Melisandre scene. Perhaps I’m off in my estimation, but that’s certainly how it felt to me.

Falcon:
I don’t think the nudity was as unbalanced as you guys complained it was. It’s not like Mel showed her downstairs stuff. Showing a penis is not equal to showing boobs

The problem with this “nudity” idea is that people seem to have this ridiculous notion that breasts somehow indicate nudity. Why should they? It’s just the whole fear or hatred of feminine sexuality and the idea that if a woman’s body is on display than it ought to be available for sexual purposes.

Woman baring their breasts should not be counted as “nudity” any more than a man bearing his chest should count as nudity. Only penises and vaginas ought to count.

I enjoyed the show! Just a couple things I think you guys missed. When Sansa asked Tyrion, what if I never want you, Tyrion’s feelings were actually hurt. Re-watch that scene and look at his eyes tighten and close. That one hurt and he was surprised either because she said such a thing or because he didn’t expect her rejection to hurt him or maybe both. It was a wonderful bit of acting because even though I knew that was coming (I am a book reader) I still reacted out loud with, ‘awwwwwwww, poor Tyrion!’

The other thing was the fact that you thought Sam had a bunch more of the dragon glass weapons. I don’t think he does! He only showed Gilly the one and the rest were in a fur pouch of some sort that we last saw with Grenn. I didnt see Sam carrying such a pouch in any of the scenes since leaving Craster’s. And realistically, how many of those things can he tuck into his cloak?

My favorite own of the episode was Tyrion spitting wine out to show his contempt for his fathers attempt to bully him. Best non-line of the show and Dinklage totally stole that scene because of it. AND did you notice how Dance/Tywin shakes his hand before walking away as if had gotten wine on him and was disgusted? I almost wanted the camera to be pulled back a little more to see if Tyrion had actually spit on his father.

Actually though, my main disappointment with the episode was the omission of one of my favourite book scenes. Mero asks for some wine as a reward and Dany rewards him with a whole wagon-full of wine whilst arranging a meeting two days later. Mero and the Second Sons get incredibly drunk and Dany attacks them that very night.

Smart move from Dany that was omitted from the show. I guess it was a lack of time.

Meh, the episode was again full of little mistakes, but I guess that’s what you get for recording right after the show, not sure I would’ve done better. And btw. I like the shorter, but more episodes ;-)

One comment thought on the “show predicts book”: NO! Because,

– the show and books are two different beasts, as has been stated by the producers. The show simply cannot reach the complexity, so you can’t compare it. If you don’t accept that argument, then…

– the show combined two characters in season 3, Gendry and Edric Storm. Now if the show does something different to Show!Gendry than the books, does that spell doom for Book!Gendry or Book!Edric Storm? They can always reintroduce another character, maybe even a Show!Edric Storm or a Show!Gendry2, if they want so. The show relies much more on the present needs of a visual tv story and has to work with the unability to keep an actor on the backburner for too long. So they need to use them when they can, which they do with Gendry here. That doesn’t mean they can’t twist their story back to the book result if they so need to.

So no, nothing can be read from the show for the books.

Also, the Mel-Gendry scene was awkward in that she didn’t need to get naked to get the leeches placed (Gendry would have given her his blood…) and I was dissapointed that we didn’t get to see him naked, well there’s always the Skins episodes… ;)

No one’s ever going to convince me that Emilia and Carice showing breasts and butt while Joe Dempsie shows just his chest is equality in male-female nudity. Semantics aside, we see a lot more naked women than naked men on this show. That is cold hard fact, and they need to do better on that account.

Ms. D. Ranged in AZ,
Not really sure how that counts as being “missed.” We did discuss his acting quite a bit in that scene and how good it was. But at that point, I was admittedly much more “Poor Sansa” than “poor Tyrion.”

Something significant to remember if that half the members of the GOO podcast are Unsullied, so there’s some holding back in discussion because some know a lot more than others about what is going on. It’s hard to know sometimes what can and cannot be disclosed when you’re chatting with the Unsullied. Anyway, it’s entirely possible that Sam has one or two arrowheads stashed in the pockets of that huge cloak. And Sam is not a warrior exactly, so it’s not like it was out of character for him to run like hell instead of stopping to see if the WW had any friends coming while picking up the dagger.

The show has a lot more male viewers, however. So I’d say the ratio is pretty spot on.

Ours is the FuryNo one’s ever going to convince me that Emilia and Carice showing breasts and butt while Joe Dempsie shows just his chest is equality in male-female nudity. Semantics aside, we see a lot more naked women than naked men on this show. That is cold hard fact, and they need to do better on that account.

Arthur: Yeah he gets killed whatever… But in that tent, at that moment, he was fucking badass and owned that shit and talked down to Dany like she was some stupid whore… Totally owning her…

I read this scene very differently. What we saw was Dany allowing herself to be put down to lull those idiots into a sense of complacency – and also to see just how stupid they really are. That’s what the whole “I’m but a girl unschooled in the ways of war” thing is about.

It’s not a Own if you’re letting yourself be Owned. Dany owned them.

As for her being in “danger” I don’t see it. He knows he’s dead if he tries anything – he’s surrounded by enemies. And what does a sellsword love more than money? His life.

Says who? Every fan event I’ve been to or seen for GoT, there are far more females present than males. Tumblr’s fanbase for GoT is overwhelmingly female. I think Reddit skews more male. We have loads of female commenters here, though they don’t often announce their gender. People typically even assume that I’m male until they learn otherwise. The problem is that people default to male with their assumptions.

The viewership on the GoT videos I upload to youtube have a steady gender breakdown of 60-40 male-female ratio. It varies a bit, higher female viewership of Jon Snow vids for example, but in general, women are almost half of the audience. Going off that sampling of a few million unique views, men are somewhat more of the audience, but not a lot more. And frankly, I think the popularity of shows like Spartacus proves that people appreciate shows that don’t shy away from male nudity. Some of the men who watch GoT happen to like *men*, you know.

Wow, way to misread her conduct throughout the whole scene. She was exhibiting immense restraint while Mero was giving himself away. The only Ownage she experienced was Daario calling out Selmy’s bluff, assuming they planned the lie together beforehand.

I totally hear you from the other side of the fence. I was pretty happy about Emilia’s bold in-the-buffness, but a lot of that enjoyment comes from her inhabiting Dany’s skin, the trappings and mannerisms of the young but fearless dragon queen. I don’t think I’d be particularly drawn to her nakedness as a character I don’t care as much about.

I felt we had another naked-but-invulnerable moment with Dany, like we did with Brienne in the baths. Amazing how the actors pull that off.

Not to suggest it takes any less for an actress to show skin, but I get the feeling most male actors have more pronounced reservations about full frontal than women do. Think about Hodor’s prosthetic hodor, or Kevin Bacon asking CGI guys to make his invisible bacon longer in Hollow Man. Hell, even Spartacus used a prosthetic penis for a number of its actors who were pee-shy among their better endowed colleagues (a prop memorably dubbed “Kirk Douglas”). Pecker order is a cultural reality a lot of men deal with, which I humbly put forth as an additional barrier between penis enthusiasts and the hung paradise they keep wishing out of shows like GoT. A man can have the perfect body, but still have hang-ups over airing out his external toolset for the viewing public.

True, it’s astonishing what difference a few years and a somehow kinda beard can make ;)

Regarding the peens and prosthetics, it’s true that there’s a competition but that’s why smaller ones would be more realistic and not at all a problem. Then again, there’s the tv effect: Everybody on the show is “more beautiful” than their book correspondent, so… The one problem anyways is that there’s no middleground for men. Boobs are kind ubiquitous because they are ‘easy’ to show. You don’t seem many Vaginas in the show either, since there’s … (no way to put this nicely :)). And many times in the show, the penis should be erect (Theon in s1, not now :)), which you can’t do. I just wish it wouldn’t matter at all, it’s not like I need to see naked people in the show after all :) I want it to be natural (i.e. no strategically placed bedsheets, those are terrible and take me out of any show…)

Btw. What’s the “Family Friendliness” of this site? The Policy refers to “no vulgar posts”, but I don’t feel this discussing of sex is vulgar, right? (And I approve of this more free stance btw. :))

Well I think it’s a pertinent discussion, sex and nudity being part of the show. No one’s crossed any lines. I think the vulgarity issue in moderation is more along the lines of people randomly posting elaborate gross fantasies about what they want to do to Natalie Dormer, but I’ll ask for clarification. :)

It’s such an interesting discussion, whether or not the show can predict the books. And while I agree you can’t assume that something happening within the show canon necessarily affects book canon, you also can’t dismiss it completely.

There’s a reason why GRRM has told Benioff and Weiss what happens in later books, after all. They know who ultimately gets the Iron Throne (if it isn’t blown to pieces, which is my prediction), who lives, who dies, etc. I’m not saying they HAVE to stick to it in the show, but at the same time I couldn’t imagine them going to such pains to interpret a book series (and being as faithful as they have been) only to veer off from canon completely and leave the power in the hands of a completely different set of people than in the books.

I know that if the show finishes before the book series, they can’t end the story the way the books will (at least I hope not!), but as of right now, they have to assume that the broad strokes of the story need to stay the same. So they can’t kill off, say, Daenerys, Arya or Bran on a whim because they decide it’d be really effective on screen. Because those characters are probably going to end up being hugely significant to the outcome of the story.

So if you believe that Gendry has been left alive rather than killed off when Arya left him behind in the book series for a reason, then if they decide to kill him off in season 3 of the show, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he probably won’t end up leading the Brotherhood or temporarily claiming the Iron Throne in the name of his father in later books. Because they’d want him around for that, seeing as he’s been in the show since season 1 and it’d resonate much more strongly with fans than if they just replaced him with a random Baratheon bastard we have no attachment to.

It’s kind of like if they’d killed off Syrio Forel in season 1. If that had been the case, I imagine a lot of people would have dropped their theories about the significance of this particular character. But the fact that they didn’t (in an episode written by GRRM no less) indicates that he’s needed later in the story.

Anyway, this might all be a moot point if Gendry ends up escaping Storm’s End, maybe with Davos’ help, as a lot of people are predicting. :) But if not, then I think that DOES say something about his significance in future books.

I disagree. A fly might land on me with swagger and confidence, but it’s still just a fly. Mero showed himself to be a disgusting fool. The look of amused derision on Dany’s face said it all. She wasn’t owned, and she didn’t lose. She didn’t need to lay down with the pigs in the muck to prove a point. And, I would argue, her grace-coated steely demeanor is what ultimately intrigued Daario enough to have him lop off Mero’s head and bring it to her. So while Mero acted the fool — although I’ll grant you that he did it with “swagger” and confidence — Dany is in the fact the one who did the “owning.”

I’m confused about your third last paragraph. When was Gendry left behind by Arya? Do you mean the Hound after the inn incident which will be another interesting situation to see how the show handles that. And that is my main point that the show tries to leave things open. So while you can take these developments into consideration, there’s no way to be sure about it. There’s so many ways you can turn most stuff around again. Obviously, this isn’t true for the main plot points and characters, but for the rest it’s open game.

Example: Hypothetically, Gendry will lead the brotherhood to the throne in the books at some time (I don’t think this will happen, but let’s roll with it), but he’s killed off or somewhere in Essos in the show. Is it substantively different if Thoros leads the Brotherhood because he has seen it in the flame and they do it for bastard x (Edric, Mya Stone, a new one, etc. …) who may wait in Kings Landing or has joined them later on. The only importance I see is if Gendry’s relationships become important, and those are restrained to Arya. Of course it would be bad television since the audience woulnd’t know them, but it nows Gendry. That’s why ‘escaping’ – as Edric Storm did btw. – seems more probable to me. And after escaping, we know that off-screen characters can teleport at the speed of plot, see Melisandre ;).

So you see, I’m just against people stating as fact that you can predict everything with 100% certainty from the show. You can take it into account and it leads to good discussion perhaps, but not more. For example, can you tell me what the show change of Daario a) not having blue hair and b) belonging to the Second Sons, and not the Stormcrows changes? Too minor? Maybe, but you know butterfly effect which is true for the above paragraph as well, which is why I am wary to predict anything. In the end, they want to stay true to the story, but they will do any change that is necessary for good television or production reasons (f.e. the feast tent scenes at the tourney of the Hand in season1 were cut because there was a storm in Northern Ireland and they ran out of time).

WompWomp: I totally hear you from the other side of the fence. I was pretty happy about Emilia’s bold in-the-buffness, but a lot of that enjoyment comes from her inhabiting Dany’s skin, the trappings and mannerisms of the young but fearless dragon queen.

I loved it because she’s beautiful on the one hand but also because it was such a great scene. They clearly ‘shared a moment’ in that initial meeting, which inspired Daario to do what he did. Dany emerging from her bath like that showed complete fearlessness and also an awareness of sexuality’s power to sway hearts, reinforced with Daario’s line about his heart being hers in addition to his sword and his men. It was a masterful seduction.

I was expecting show Daario to be more like show Mero. I’m glad they didn’t go that route.

ETA: Saw David Benioff on Craig Ferguson’s show last night. Haha, Craig asked him if when casting roles does he wonder “But what do her breasts look like?” And Benioff pointed out “It’s an era before implants, that’s the main thing”

I thought it was funny he took the question seriously, but it was a good point.

Re: Nudity – best used when it serves a purpose, and not just exposed boobies to be gratuitous (am not anti-boobs).

For instance, Dany stands and gets out of the tub in front of Desert Fabio. His bold move is matched, and some may say surpassed, by Dany. In an intimate (bathing) and vulnerable moment, she stands up in front of a man with a sword and without saying a word shows him she’s not scared of him. Reminded me of when Brienne stood in front of Jamie.

melisandre uses her charms to disarm gendry, the same way the 2 women charmed and disarmed Theon. While both men were suspicious, the women used their bodies as a weapon in that way.

Using whatever is at your disposal to get what you want or need is a natural inclination. If a man being naked would further their ambition I’d think they’d use it, for example the guy who slept with Loras, can’t remember his name right now.

Manipulation via sex/nudity is just another part of this torture filled world.

I think the Cersei-Margaery conversation/threat was to distract the audience from what is going to happen next episode ‘Rains of Castamere,’ possibly making them think that something terrible is going to happen to the Tyrells

I sensed that members of GOO were trying to hold back book knowledge so I can appreciate that. And I agree that Sam running away and leaving the dragon glass spear head(?) was perfectly in character for him.

With all due respect–pecker order, while certainly a psychological factor for men, is NOTHING compared to the female body image problem in the U.S. (can’t speak to other cultures). So if you think that women with itty bitties, or waists that are a little bigger than size 0 or have cellulite on their thighs or stretch marks, etc, etc, etc don’t have even worse qualms, then you are VERY mistaken. The fact is that the U.S. is a patriarchal based society in which the female form is both reviled and worshiped and in which more women will appear naked for the titillation of the dominant male population. As “Ours is the Fury” said the ratio of nekkid on this show ain’t equal and penis size isn’t really the reason, it’s merely another symptom of our culture.

I know book Dany handled herself a lot differently and was playing the long game rather then they short one as far as the meeting with Mero.

Good points you all made…

Okay I got a new owns moment then.

How about the way Dany grabs hold of the side of the bathtub and lefts herself up exposing her glorious glistening wet naked body to Daario… The way she did it all the while keeping that intense Dany Targaryen stare locked into Daario’s eyes…